Author's Note: "The Setup", Part I.
Formal Short Story Summary: Dawn and Donna decide it's high time that Buffy and the Doctor got together. But a picnic is never just a picnic with the Doctor and Buffy.
Author's Short Story Summary: I... um... just shoved the Doctor and Buffy into the most ridiculous internet sex cliches imaginable. And then turned it into a story. Complete with actual plot-line, symbolism, and cannonical tie-ins.
(By the way, in case you're wondering, the Seventh Segment is, in fact, the fanfic where the Doctor's "yet" from Nothing actually happens.)
The Setup
Part I
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"They're totally perfect for each other," Dawn told Donna, one day. "They both have that whole superhero thing going on, they both have massive guilt issues, they're both clearly in love with each other. If they could just admit it…"
"Ha!" said Donna. "You think Spaceman's going to admit that he's actually in love with someone? The bloke who keeps insisting that he and Rose were 'just mates'? If you're waiting for Skinny, it'll be a long wait."
Dawn frowned. "Buffy won't make the first move," she said. "She's super freaked out that the Doctor might say no."
"Just because Slayeretta broke up with her bloke doesn't mean anything's actually going to happen," Donna said. "I've been trying to get them to snog each other forever, now. I'm practically shoving your sister out the door every time Skinny goes out to mope. And still, nothing!"
"Yeah," Dawn said, slumping. Then, her eyes lit up. "Wait. I just got an idea!"
Donna raised an eyebrow at Dawn.
"Well, if neither of them are going to make the first move, why don't we just… push them in the right direction?" said Dawn. "Like… more aggressively."
"What, you mean like a setup?" Donna asked.
"Yeah!" said Dawn. "We send them off on a candlelit dinner or something romantic, and they'll totally be all over each other at the end."
Donna gave a small sigh. "Considering their luck, if we sent the two of them off — together — to somewhere romantic, there'd be a 90% chance that the restaurant would be attacked by aliens, demons, or both."
Dawn had to admit, that was kind of true. Both Buffy and the Doctor were serious trouble magnets, and combined, they'd be doubly serious trouble magnets.
"Besides," said Donna. "Skinny would try to get out of it. Give him a domestic situation, and he heads for the hills."
Dawn cringed. "So… no meals or anything."
"Not unless they eat on the run," said Donna. She gave a barking laugh. "Might as well give them a picnic basket and a sack lunch."
"There has to be something we can do!" Dawn insisted. "Just to get them past the awkward stuff and right to the kissing and handcuffs and things."
"Handcuffs?"
"Oh, yeah, Buffy has these super bondage fantasies," said Dawn. "I read them in her diary, last year. She sort of has this one where she gets out these handcuffs, and then she—"
"Oi!" said Donna. She pointed her index fingers, and crossed her arms in front of her. "Don't go there. No disturbing Spaceman sex fantasies while I'm around."
"Maybe if we give Buffy the handcuffs," said Dawn, "she'll get the message." She hesitated. "Or… get really mad at me for reading her diary."
"Probably the latter," Donna said.
"Yeah," said Dawn.
Donna tilted her head. "Although, it does give me an idea," she said, with a small smile.
"Okay, I'm not one for suspicions, but… this is suspicious," said Buffy, her hand over the picnic basket in her lap. "Dawn never does super domestic stuff like this, she never lends out her special lucky picnic basket, and… Doctor, if you crash Giles' car, he's going to get seriously pissed off at you!"
The Doctor grinned at Buffy, then shoved his foot down all the way on the accelerator, and shouted, "Wheee!"
Buffy gripped the picnic basket tighter, as the Doctor nearly rolled the red convertible while turning a corner. "You're almost as bad a driver as I am!"
"It's brilliant, isn't it?" the Doctor shouted back.
And Buffy wasn't sure if he was ignoring her, or if he actually hadn't heard.
"Do you even know where we're going?" Buffy asked.
"Of course I know where we're going!" the Doctor replied. "I always know where we're going!"
"I'm just saying that this doesn't look like Erdulum's Fields!" Buffy said, looking at the shady, abandoned buildings surrounding her. "It doesn't even look like any field!"
"It's a short cut!" the Doctor assured her. His eyes gleamed in excitement, as he whipped out the sonic screwdriver, buzzed at the dashboard, and the car zoomed off even faster.
"At least in a car, you can only get lost in 2 dimensions!" Buffy shouted at him, over the wind.
The Doctor slammed his foot on the breaks, and Buffy would probably have flown out of the car, if it weren't for her seatbelt. She took a second to catch her breath.
Then noticed that they still weren't anywhere near a sunlit field.
"Doctor," Buffy started.
But the Doctor shushed her, his eyes fixed on the building just beside them. There was that hint of curiosity on his lips, seeping into his eyes and making his fingers itch to work out the answers.
"You're finding trouble, again, aren't you?" Buffy asked.
"What? Me? Never!" said the Doctor, parking the car and jumping out without opening the door.
Buffy sighed, and followed him, picnic basket still tucked under her arm. She stood beside him, looking up at the building. "What's so special about this abandoned office building, anyways?"
"Recognize the symbol," said the Doctor, pointing to the logo adorning the outside of the building. "Suspiciously like the symbol for 'warning' in the colloquial trade lingo in this section of the Milky Way. Bit odd, don't you think?"
"No," said Buffy. "What would be odd is if you turned around and didn't go inside to investigate. Or if you went inside to investigate and found out that everything was totally normal. Or…"
But the Doctor was already over by the locked up doors of the office building, buzzing at the padlock with his sonic screwdriver.
"…if we'd actually gone on the picnic," Buffy sighed.
She looked down at the picnic basket. How stupid was she, thinking this might actually work? When Donna had shoved the basket into her arms and demanded that she and Skinny go off and have fun together, Buffy had almost hoped that maybe… they could talk.
About… what they had going on between them. And where it was leading to. And what it meant.
This… relationship between the Doctor and herself wasn't really just friendship. Even last year. Riley had known that. It had torn her and Riley apart, and now that Riley had finally left Sunnydale, all Buffy felt was… well, relief.
But, of course, the Doctor probably knew exactly why Buffy wanted a normal picnic, and exactly what Buffy wanted to talk about with him. Which was why he had decided to look for trouble, instead of a good spot to have a picnic.
Maybe they'd get a chance to eat while they were running for their lives.
Buffy went over to the Doctor, as the padlock clicked open. With a grin, the Doctor opened the door.
"Care to join me?" He asked, offering her a hand.
"Breaking into a building where we'll probably wind up in serious danger and fighting for our lives?"
The Doctor beamed at her.
Buffy sighed, but took his hand. "You're such a bad influence on me."
"Life's no fun if you don't take a few risks!" the Doctor told her, as he pulled her inside.
"Yeah, but there's taking risks, and then there's you," Buffy said. "If there was a door marked, 'this way to the eternal torments of Hell,' you'd totally open it just to see what was inside."
"Well, I'd have to," the Doctor argued. He paused by the wall, upon which lay a placard which read, 'Origins, Inc.' "Have to make sure that the label matches what's behind, at any rate." The Doctor then spun around, and continued to walk down the corridor. "Free the oppressed, rescue the tormented, that sort of thing."
"You're just lucky you have me along to beat up the monsters, for you," said Buffy. "I have no idea how you possibly managed to stay alive for 900 years without me."
"I'm very lucky!" the Doctor replied. He stuck his free hand into his pocket, as they passed what looked like an abandoned scientific laboratory. "What? Don't you like it? Exploring the unexplored? Solving the unsolvable? Seeing what no one's ever seen before?"
"I like…" Buffy trailed off. She was about to say, "I like you," which was the real reason she was doing all of this. But she thought better of it. "I was never this curious before I met you, you know," Buffy amended.
The Doctor stopped, suddenly. His eyes staring off down the white corridor, his lips pursed, his mind clearly churning through some set of possibilities. Buffy was about to ask him what was going on, when she heard it.
The clomp of boots. Lots of boots. Heavy-sounding boots.
They spun around to face the noise, as its source emerged into the hallway. It was a large army platoon, filled with heavily armed human-looking soldiers. Although, Buffy knew from experience, that didn't necessarily mean they were human. She tried to reach out with her Slayer senses, but those senses were all acting… kind of weird, right now. Like they were spinning in circles.
The soldiers all pulled out their guns, and aimed them at Buffy and the Doctor.
"You have trespassed," said the head soldier.
The Doctor and Buffy both raised their hands in surrender.
"Terribly sorry about that," the Doctor said, not even fazed by the emergence of guns — typical. "Bit turned around. We were looking for Archeon, but I think we might have made a wrong turn right around Beetlejuice, because we wound up here, instead. Don't suppose you could—"
"The punishment for trespassing is death," said the head soldier.
Buffy and the Doctor looked at one another.
Then they turned, and ran.
"I can't take you anywhere, can I?" Buffy shouted at him, as they turned down another corridor.
"What?" asked the Doctor. "This is brilliant! There has to be something important, here, if they're trying to kill us!"
"Maybe they're just not very nice!" Buffy said. "I mean, they are aliens!"
"Aliens?" the Doctor said. "Course not! They're human!"
"What?" Buffy cried.
The Doctor was about to respond, when the sound of charging energy guns sounded from around the bend in front of them. "Humans bearing very sophisticated technology," the Doctor muttered.
Buffy could hear the clomp of boots behind them, and gestured at him to try to make sure he knew that they were cornered.
The Doctor darted his eyes around the corridor, then grabbed her by the arm and tugged her into a closet, locking it with his sonic screwdriver.
Buffy tried to keep the blush off her cheeks, as she smushed up against the Doctor in the cramped closet. She was so close to him, pressed against him and surrounded by him, able to be completely surrounded by the essence of all that was Doctor, able to fall into it and pretend she could immerse herself in him.
He wiggled behind her. "Bit cramped," he whispered.
Then he stilled, as the footsteps came closer and closer to their closet. Almost subconsciously, he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her closer to him, and Buffy turned to face him, wrapping her own arms around his waist, and trying to make out his face in the darkness.
Why did she like this guy so much?
He could be everything she absolutely hated. Someone who'd seem to be interested, but would run off if she actually tried to take things past a certain point. Someone who gave vampires a chance, but wasn't willing to give her little sister one. Someone who lied all the time, left her behind, worked against her on patrols, and drove her completely crazy.
Riley had been right. There was nothing that Riley had done that the Doctor hadn't done, as well. But Buffy forgave the Doctor all of it, even if she couldn't for Riley. And, no, it didn't make sense. Not at all.
Except… it kind of did.
Because it wasn't about that. It wasn't about the little things. It was about how, when Buffy had been with Riley — particularly at the end — she'd felt as if she were fighting a constant battle. He wanted her to prove that she loved him, prove it in heroics and daring dos and tremendous sacrifices. Towards the end, she just… honestly… didn't like being with him.
But when the Doctor was around… Buffy felt happy. Horrible things still happened — sometimes just because this was Sunnydale, sometimes just because she was Buffy and horrible things always happened around her, and sometimes because he was the Doctor and horrible things always happened around him — but when he was around, the world seemed like a better place. Her life felt like it didn't suck so much. Every single part of her felt… not just happier, but more at peace with herself.
Buffy felt herself squeeze him a little tighter. As if she could squeeze tight enough that she'd melt into him, become a part of him as he'd become a part of her. They weren't perfect, neither of them, but they were Buffy and the Doctor, and that was enough.
The clomp of boots got closer and closer, and then one of the guards shouted, "They're in here!"
Okay, scratch that. It wasn't enough. Enough would be Buffy and the Doctor alive, as opposed to Buffy and the Doctor as Human-Time Lord Barbeque.
She tried to shift into a fighting stance, but it was too cramped in that tiny little space. Darn it, she was going to have to spring out and act on instinct, wasn't she?
"Hm…" said the Doctor.
Buffy blinked up at him. He wasn't looking at her. He was staring at the wall behind him, sonic still in hand, a thoughtful gleam in his eyes.
"What?" asked Buffy, as she heard the soldiers outside trying to knock the door in.
"This," said the Doctor, buzzing the sonic, "isn't a wall."
The wall shimmered, then dropped away to reveal a vast unfolding of land and grass and sun, a magnificent city perched in the distance.
Buffy loosened her arms, as the Doctor stepped out of the closet, out of her grasp, and into the bright, sunlit meadow. He closed his eyes, and breathed in, a smile dancing across his face.
"Brilliant!" he said.
Buffy stepped out, too. Behind her, the wall began to cement itself back into place, the hint of the outside world growing fainter and fainter, replaced with sky and woods and trees. Buffy's instinct was to run forwards and hold the door, but she could see the soldiers busting open the closet, and knew that she was safer staying here and finding another way back.
Buffy ran forwards, and grabbed the Doctor's hand in hers, pulling him away from the pursuing soldiers. "Yeah, glad to see you just Narnia'ed us up an escape route, but super-soldier-gun-guys are going to be able to use the same trick! So we'd better get out of here, right away!"
"What?" said the Doctor, opening his eyes and letting himself be led away. He glanced at his surroundings. "Nah, this isn't Narnia. Probably just some array of holographic generation fields aligned with…"
Suddenly, he cried out, his face twisted in pain, and he collapsed onto the grassy field.
Buffy ran back to him, but tripped over her own feet and found herself on the ground, too. She got back up, but… that was weird. Was the world supposed to be spinning around in circles like that?
She took a few deep breaths, until the world stabilized around her, then went over to the Doctor. She put a hand on his shoulder.
"You okay?"
"Will be," the Doctor told her, through gritted teeth. He clenched his eyes shut, and breathed heavily for a few moments, then seemed to relax. He shot Buffy a grin that looked only slightly forced. "Localized time distortion, too, seems like."
"Wait, what?" asked Buffy. "You mean time distortion in the sense of hell dimension where a hundred years of torture equals one week on Earth, or time distortion in the sense of evil aliens doing dangerous time travel experiments on Earth? Or time distortion in the sense of we're now on Earth in the Middle Ages and there's no way back?"
The Doctor considered. "Not sure," he admitted. "Although… don't think the last one works. This whole thing, here, it's all still part of that building, see."
"We're still in the building?" asked Buffy.
"Yep!" said the Doctor. He pointed into the distance. "See how that bit slopes dramatically downhill? I'd say we're headed right towards the basement." He jumped to his feet and knocked on — what looked like — a piece of sky. It made a dull clang. "Metal walls," the Doctor said. "Corridor, at a guess. Leading down into the main area, at the bottom."
"But… it looks so real," said Buffy. "It's… magic, right? Or alien or demonic or something?"
The Doctor frowned. "The technology could be human," he said. "You see this sort of thing all over the place in the 70th century. So, question is, what's it doing here?"
Buffy sighed. "Trust you to wind up trapped in a closet that's actually a weird alien time thing."
The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her. "Trust you to hang onto your weapons no matter what." He flicked his eyes down to the picnic basket that Buffy realized she was still carrying with her, under her arm.
"This isn't a weapon," she said, waving it at him. "It's a picnic basket! Dawn's picnic basket! Which she leant us for the picnic we're supposed to be going on!"
"This is more fun than a picnic, though, isn't it?" said the Doctor, stuffing his hands into his pockets and bouncing on the balls of his feet. "New place to explore! New people to meet! And… oh, probably a very well kept secret, if those guards were anything to go by."
Buffy looked back where they'd come. There was still no indication that anyone was coming through after them.
"Okay, not to be alarmist or anything," said Buffy, "but they're not coming after us. Which usually means there's a monster on this side that they're going to let eat us."
"Quite probably!" the Doctor said. He held out a hand to her.
Buffy gave a small sigh, but took his hand in hers. "You're completely insane."
The Doctor grinned. "Course I am!"
And they ran off, together, beneath the bright and cheery sun, towards the city that, Buffy was sure, would lead them to their certain doom.
(And, with him, she kind of loved it.)
